![]() What Counts as Relevant Work Experience? Our Master’s degree students come from a wide range of professional backgrounds, primarily in the public and non-profit sectors. Post-graduate work experience can be obtained over time, beginning with summer employment, internship experience, volunteer experience, and professional experience after graduating from college. Also, refrain from dramatic embellishment, hyperbole and emotional rhetoric (you are not writing a political speech or an op-ed article). Avoid vague language and sentences that have no substance or state the obvious. Write in the active voice, keep sentences relatively short, and minimize the use of adjectives and adverbs. Eliminate unnecessary words and avoid repetition. Use clear, direct language, free of bureaucratic jargon, pompous language or clichés. Each sentence must serve to advance your presentation. Policy memos require brevity and specificity. political, economic, environmental, technical, etc.). Implementation issues for any recommendations (i.e.Counter-arguments against your position.Recommendations or conclusions about the issue.Factors contributing to the issue or problem. ![]() Description and significance of the issue or problem you are examining.Do not “bury” major themes in the middle of a paragraph.Ī typical memo may include the following sections: Each major point should be the focus of a separate paragraph. Each paragraph should begin with a significant point (the “topic sentence”), to be supported or expanded upon in the rest of the paragraph. Rather, it is divided into sections, with headings that identify the content or major point of each section. ![]() The format of a memo should enhance its readability. ![]() The reader should be able to identify the essential points in a quick scan of the memo (particularly the section headings and topic sentences). It must be well-organized, clearly written and succinct, with a logical connection between the background information, evidence and conclusions/recommendation. ![]() A policy memo provides information, guidance or recommendations about an issue or problem to a decision-maker. Graduate students in our Masters in Public Affairs program are required to take a core course entitled "The Politics of Public Policy" in which special attention is given to writing skills as they apply to the roles of advisers and decision makers in public-sector organizations.īelow is an excerpt from Steve's policy memo writing guidelines he provides to the graduate students in that course: Steve meets with students one-on-one during his office hours to advise them on their various writing assignments. Steve Frakt, the School's writing advisor, has been advising the School's undergraduate and graduate students for the past 17 years. Applicants often ask us to provide some guidance in writing a policy memo. ![]()
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